Rethinking the scale, structure & scope of U.S. energy institutions

This essay notes some of the key institutions created in the twentieth century for the purpose of delivering energy in North America. Those institutions are being challenged by a combination of stresses in three interconnected areas: reliability, economics, and environmental sustainability. The essay argues that these three stresses create an “energy trilemma” requiring institutional reform. We suggest that new and modi½ed institutions can best be understood if we evaluate them along three dimensions: institutional scale, structure, and scope. We consider real-world examples of recent institutions in light of each of these dimensions and note both successes and concerns that those factors illuminate. We conclude by noting that some institutional changes will be organic and unplanned; but many others, including responses to climate change, will bene½t from conscious attention to scale, structure, and scope by those engaged in designing and building the energy institutions needed in the twenty-½rst century

Complementary optical-potential analysis of alpha-particle elastic scattering and induced reactions at low energies

A previously derived semi-microscopic analysis based on the Double Folding Model, for alpha-particle elastic scattering on A~100 nuclei at energies below 32 MeV, is extended to medium mass A ~ 50-120 nuclei and energies from ~13 to 50 MeV. The energy-dependent phenomenological imaginary part for this semi-microscopic optical model potential was obtained including the dispersive correction to the microscopic real potential, and used within a concurrent phenomenological analysis of the same data basis. A regional parameter set for low-energy alpha-particles entirely based on elastic-scattering data analysis was also obtained for nuclei within the above-mentioned mass and energy ranges. Then, an ultimate assessment of (alpha,gamma), (alpha,n) and (alpha,p) reaction cross sections concerned target nuclei from 45Sc to 118Sn and incident energies below ~12 MeV. The former diffuseness of the real part of optical potential as well as the surface imaginary-potential depth have been found responsible for the actual difficulties in the description of these data, and modified in order to obtain an optical potential which describe equally well both the low energy elastic-scattering and induced-reaction data of alpha-particles.Comment: 46 pages, 16 figures. n_TOF Collaboration Annual Meeting, Bari, Italy, 28-30 November 2007 (http://www.cern.ch/ntof/Documents/bari_nov07/bari_slides.php); revised version accepted for publication in ADND

Vacuum Photon Splitting in Lorentz-Violating Quantum Electrodynamics

Radiative corrections arising from Lorentz violation in the fermion sector induce a nonzero amplitude for vacuum photon splitting. At one loop, the on-shell amplitude acquires both CPT-even and CPT-odd contributions forbidden in conventional electrodynamics.Comment: 4 pages, minor wording changes, references added, accepted in Physical Review Letter

On the sytematics of Eremocossus vaulogeri (Staudinger, 1897) sensu lato (Lepidoptera: Cossidae)

Eremocossus kravchenkoisp. nov. is described from Egypt and Israel. For Eremocossus jordana (Staudinger, 1897) and Eremocossus saharae (Lucas, 1907) the species status is restored. The genitals structures of E. jordana and E. saharae are described and illustrated for the first time. http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:AE437743-328E-42DD-B927-69942ACD95EF

Low level of virological failure and drug resistance among patients receiving antiretroviral treatment under programme conditions in Maputo, Mozambique

Mexico AIDS Conference 200

Far-Infrared Excitations below the Kohn Mode: Internal Motion in a Quantum Dot

We have investigated the far-infrared response of quantum dots in modulation doped GaAs heterostructures. We observe novel modes at frequencies below the center-of-mass Kohn mode. Comparison with Hartree-RPA calculations show that these modes arise from the flattened potential in our field-effect confined quantum dots. They reflect pronounced relative motion of the charge density with respect to the center-of-mass.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX with integrated 6 PostScript figure